Wednesday 28 May 2014

WELCOME TO TROPHYCUS....


Once upon a time, in a land that is your present, there existed a kingdom.  A kingdom named ‘Trophycus’. In that kingdom, according to the revered yet secretive laws of the land, the status of a plebeian was decided based on the number of trophies his family could garner and showcase in their cemented abode. The social acceptability, repute and honour of the ‘Trophycus’ clan, depended solely on the quantity of trophies glistening in their shelves. I belong to ‘Trophycus’.

Like every other house, our house too had a main room or as I call it, the drawing room. The drawing room had a big diwan strategically placed to get the best view of the television, a brown sofa, two nilkamal chairs and one big cabinet. A big cabinet of trophies, big and small. Being the only child in the family till the age of 8, the task was bestowed upon me to fill up the shelves with the fruits of my victories. The cabinet was divided ‘generation’ wise. The lowest storey held the trophies and medals that my grandfather won. Trophies so old, that they resembled the artefacts collected from a lost ship. The latest addition and the only shining piece was the medal he won for winning a game of carrom in his company’s anniversary celebration in 1981.  The next row, contained the metallic accolades that my father and his two siblings managed to acquire. Trophies ranging from ‘Best Student M.Sc (Physics)’ to ‘2rd Prize Javelin throw’ to even ‘Complimentary prize Fashion Show Year 1983’ were all part of this row. The above mentioned three, won by my father. I was a proud daughter who had to accomplish a colossal feat and usurp the record maintained by my father.  

When I was born, the top shelf was cleaned and the show pieces that had been a substitute till now were removed, except for the giant face of  Kathakali because you are not a Malayalee family, until you have one of those on your shelf. I was the rightful heir of that tier and I had been assigned the mammoth task of filling it up. Fill, I did!


The little me participated in everything. Patriotic song competitions, lemon & spoon race, handwriting competitions, essay writing (mostly written by my delegate Dad) and the horrific ‘best out of waste’ competitions were all participated in. Some were won and many were lost, but the mania for trophy never stopped. I even joined a French class in 5th grade, imagining myself receiving a trophy at the end of the 6 month course at Alliance Francaise de Bhopal’. Buggers gave me an odd looking certificate. The essay competition on the importance of ‘ZERO’ organized by the Lions club where everyone looked quite human, was also won, but it won me some cash. Who wants cash? Let’s talk about trophy!  

 

That is why I love ‘Bhopal Malayalee Association’ where fellow malayalees understood the importance of trophies on the shelf and where even a participation rendered you a medal or a cup that you could proudly take home to your beloved drawing room trophy cabinet. They understood my true intentions. My all time favourite is the dolphin shaped trophy and the three hundred rupees they gave me for getting a full house in Tambola .

 

And then it all went downhill. During my 3rd year at Law school, when I was states away from my shelf of accolades, we sold our ancestral house. So, we sold our old house and moved to a new one. A new one with no shelf in the drawing room. No place to showcase my genius in the form of golden trophies and silver medals. The metal prizes of three generations sat orphaned inside cardboard boxes, with no room for future accommodation. I still remember that dreadful night in 2012 when a call was received my me, where the person on the other side of the receiver sought my permission to sell the trophies to a local kabadi wala who was offering us five notes of hundred for three boxes of trophies. 500 rupees for 3 generations of talent. I mumbled a faint OK and kept the receiver, welcoming a sleepless night ahead. That was the end of an era.

 

So, you ask me, why do I write of it now. Well, the place I stay in currently, has a shelf. A shelf where my little 7 yr old cousin keeps her Barbies and fairytale books.


And It aches!

 

P.S- I am extremely homesick. You should meet my family. They are amazing. :)

 

Monday 19 May 2014

PERIOD POPULARITY....


She got the period. She told me herself. She got the period!!!! “ and with those words I became the most popular girl of junior high.

I was in 6th grade when I got welcomed to the kingdom of muliebrity. Panties replaced bloomers and suddenly I was a woman!! My mother wept while my father fed me sweets and I was told that I am now a woman! I was sure I had cancer and I would be dead soon. Turns out, I am still alive.

I went to school and told my best friend I have caught the Period disease. Period, the existence of which was only a rumour till now, was suddenly a fact and I was the discoverer. I was the first to get the Stayfree disease.

The kids started pouring around me with doubts regarding the ‘Period’. Questions ranged from “Will you have the breasts now?”, “Why don’t I get the Periods? Am I a man?” to even “Is the period blue in color like in the Whisper Ad?”. I answered all of them diligently and patiently. A girl who was made fun of because of her differently coloured eyes was suddenly on the spotlight. Happy Period indeed it was! I felt like a war hero who survived a battle and was surrounded by people who needed the story!

I also was the drug  pad lord, forever equipped with a pad in my bag lest some other kid caught ‘the period’ and I also gave a few pieces to those who were curious to see the thing. I exchanged it for a ball point pen. Rotomac only.

During those days, especially since I was in a convent school, sex ed classes were held now and then. For the first time, the 6th grade students were invited to hear the seminar on 'The Butterfly Story-THE PROCESS OF A GIRL BECOMING A WOMAN'. The counselor called the oldest teacher of our school to wear a chart around her neck that showed the drawing of female body parts. There was our aged teacher with dye stains on her forehead standing on the podium, wearing a chart that depicted the insides of a woman’s private parts.  While the counselor lectured, all my classmates looked at me as if I was the dead body on the autopsy table and the counselor was the doctor dissecting my very existence. I was the only butterfly between a pack of caterpillars. I smirked and nodded my head to display my superiority, while the other kids looked at me with awe. I was the Period girl.

But with time everyone got their period and suddenly the spotlight was no more on me. I was now just one among them. The girl who sits on the third bench. The weird eye color girl.

SIGH! How life snatches away your crown and pushes you back to normalcy.

Maybe menopause will make me famous again. That is my only hope.

P.S- WEIRD MODE ON..

Friday 16 May 2014

GOOD IN BED !!


Not boasting, but I am extremely good in bed. To be quite frank, I am amazing in bed. There have been occasions that go beyond what my fingers can count, where I have been told about my approach in bed by many men and women, men mostly minors.

They love me and want to sleep with me. They play rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets to sleep with me, defeat rarely accepted with grace. I am the mistress of their sleep. I can prove it to you. 

My Aunt who happens to be a tour coordinator, had to leave her daughter under my careless supervision for 5 days while she was out there collecting sea shells in the beaches of Pattaya. The cousin, a 7 yr old kid, knew that I was no good and we both had that hypothetical agreement going on, whereby we will not cross each other’s way. She was a good child except during the night. She demanded princess tales and all I could give her were futile attempts of narrating the tales of Julius Caesar. She wanted Lullabies and all I awarded her were songs of Slipknot. In the end, a consensus was reached which was based on the principle that she would be the story teller and I would be the one to sleep. I did sleep off and she too did after tucking me in.

Yesterday, the Aunt returned and somewhere down the chain of conversation, she asked her kid if she had any trouble sleeping. To this the little one replied “No problem Amma. Chechi is great in bed”.

So there you have it, one more person bluntly stating how amazing I am indeed in bed. I do not kick off the pillows or pull the covers off you and heck I never ever have to make my bed! I do not move like the needle of a clock during sleep and my approach is like that of Count Dracula taking a nap in his coffin. I sleep straight, positioning the hands neatly on my chest and legs so placed, that they could humiliate a soldier standing in attention. I stay this way till the moment I wake up. I take a defined and moderate space in bed to sleep, never moving an inch and this is why everyone loves to sleep with me.

Be it some Family wedding where the house is swarming with unwanted relatives, start 9 pm, the game of who gets to sleep with me begins. Mothers inadvertently love making their kids sleep with me. Farting aunties love to sleep with me. They love me!

I don’t think I am a vixen in bed. Actually, I am the Count Dracula himself in bed.

What about you? Are you as good in bed as I am? I don’t think so.

P.S- I think I need to meet my cousin's English teacher. 


Thursday 8 May 2014

ANTI- RAPE MAKEUP.


Be it the internet, television, newspaper or even the dying radio, they are all flooded with news regarding rapes. Statistics regarding rape, documentaries about rape survivors, updates on candle light march against rape, uproar against rape and blaming the government for rape, are what we feed our system with on a daily basis. More than the uproar against rape, we are more bombarded these days with the justifications for rape. How women act like a catalyst and how she attracts an Iron filled rapist like a magnet. While a Maharashtra state women’s commissionmember states that a woman’s clothes, her behaviour and her presence at inappropriate places causes rape, another ex Mumbai police commissioner confirms that countries with sex education in their curriculum have an increased number of crimes against women. Then there is a Rajasthan lawmaker demanding ban on skirts as school uniform to keep girls away from the ‘lustful gazes’ of men and there is also a Khap Panchayat leader who vouches that Chowmein causes rape. Since we have successfully blamed a woman for her lustful gaze, her short skirt, her inclination towards wearing jeans, towards owning a mobile phone and on loitering around the city with the man she loves, it is only but fair to cover a topic that has been left unattended. A woman’s makeup, because in case you did not know, they have even brought out an anti rape underwear.

It is only but reasonable to now believe that even a woman’s makeup causes rape. It could be the smokey eyes or those lip stains or even that winged eyeliner, you never know what could be the reason behind your impending doom. So before you make such a catastrophic mistake, I take it upon me as my moral responsibility to introduce you to an ‘Anti-Rape Makeup’.

Start with a clean face because apparently, only women with dirty and loose character get raped. Thus, always clean your face so that it reflects your clean character. No excuses there. Now that you have a clean soul, follow the below steps.

Primer- Many women forget to apply primer before layering their face with makeup and this has been the main cause of rape. A primer evens out the skin tone, minimizes pores and provides a smooth base for all your makeup. Without a primer, your makeup will wash away in a matter of few hours, thus exposing the real you. Exposing or Nangapan causes rape.

Foundation- Invest on a good foundation that matches your skin tone. Manohar Lal Sharma, the lawyer who represented the Delhi rape case accused, claims that ‘Even an underworld don would not like to touch a girl with respect’. Having a strong foundation in life brings respect. So apply a good thick layer of foundation. I use Revlon Colour Stay in Natural Tan.

Concealer- Conceal everything you possibly can. Blemish, dark circles, hyper pigmentation and even moles, cover it all. Cover everything that sets you apart and hide everything including your basic wishes or dreams, because yet again, exposing causes rape. Women without concealer get raped. Use a waterproof concealer and I recommend Chambor Radiant Touch up concealer.

Blush- Select your blush carefully. Skip those common colours like Peach, Coral, Pink or Brick Red and go for deep colours like Black or Dung green. Apply a generous layer of this dark blush on your cheeks since this will make you look like a soldier camouflaging his way through the battle ground. Stepping out of your place like a Kargil soldier will prevent rape. I am still on the search for a dung green blush. Lakme needs to come up with that.

Lipstick- Nude lipsticks are for western women. We as protectors of Indian culture should abhor nude lipsticks. Any form of nudity can cause rape including going nude on the lips. You could choose a bright button red, saffron, white or blue lipstick since it might remind the rapist of a political party and thus rescue you from rape.

Eyeliner and Mascara- Tightline and waterline your eyes. You need to set and mark the boundaries of your eyes because a Madhya Pradesh minister once said ‘Only when Sitaji crossed the Lakshman rekha, she was kidnapped by Ravan. If Sitaji crosses the Lakshman rekha, then ‘Sitaharan’ is bound to happen as Ravans are  out there.’ So use your eyeliner diligently and mark your boundaries. Use your favourite mascara to enhance the fences on your boundaries. I use Maybelline Colossal Kajal and Rimmel London The Max Volume Mascara.

Now that you have successfully applied the ‘Anti Rape Makeup’, takes a tissue and do the next best thing you can do and that is to wipe it all off. Because if women need an Anti rape makeup, men need an Anti rape thought process. If women need an anti rape underwear, men require an anti rape penis binder. If women need to forgo skirts to escape rape, men need to start wearing high moral standards. Women cannot escape rape until men allow them to.

I am not saying that the makeup I recommended won’t work. All I am saying is, pepper spray is still your best friend. But in case someone does carry out an attempt to rape you, take the good God’s name and hold the hand of perpetrator and say ‘I consider you as my brother’, because according to a self proclaimed Godman, this will work just fine.


Be safe. Initiate a trip back to Venus..

Image Courtesy- GOOGLE OF COURSE.